Chhavi Bhatia

New Delhi: Reiterating its commitment to get justice for the girl who was allegedly sexually assaulted while visiting the farmer’s protest at Tikri, the Samayukta Kisan Morcha joined the probe on Tuesday. Senior leader and member of the umbrella body, Yogendra Yadav, recorded his statement with the Special Investigation Team(SIT) formed by the Haryana police. He has also consented to become a witness in the case in which two self-proclaimed farmer activists, Yogita Suhag and Kavita Arya have also been booked.

The others have been identified as Anil Malik, Anoop Singh, Ankush Sangwan and Jagdish Barar with Malik being the main accused.  The group has been running an outfit under the name Kisan Social Army, claiming to be “kisan supporters” at Tikri.

The SIT interrogated Suhag for more than two hours to piece the chain of events in the alleged assault of the 26-year-old activist from Bengal who reportedly stayed at Tikri in the tent of Kisan Social Army. On her social media handle, Suhag has claimed to be the ‘whistleblower’ of the case, alleging she was being hounded unnecessarily. According to sources, the victim had confided in Suhag and Arya about being assaulted by Malik and instead of raising the issue, they moved her out of the tent to someplace else. She succumbed to Covid on April 30, a few days after she was hospitalised with fever and cough.

The SKM, meanwhile, has maintained all along that the Kisan Social Army is not part of the farmers’ protest or the unions associated with the body.

“I have told everything that I knew to the police. We will cooperate fully with the investigation. We do not intend to hide anything, we have nothing to hide. The SKM will strive for our activist’s justice,” Yadav said.